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Table 1 Usability issues identified in the first design iteration’s usability testing focus group

From: ALOHA: developing an interactive graph-based visualization for dietary supplement knowledge graph through user-centered design

Theme

Usability Issue

Heuristic

Number of participants reporting the issue

(n = 9)

Incomplete functionality

Some weird characters, unreadable Unicode characters

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

There are two across signs work the same way, one of them should be modified

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

Two graphs in the same page separate too far away

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

Can not read the full text content of some questions

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

Can not read the full name on the circles

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

Lack of functionality

Users can not hide information after they have looked at them

Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time

1/9

Users can not remember the question they asked

Reduce uncertainty

2/9

Don’t know how to start to use the system

Reduce uncertainty

2/9

Expect more information when hovering on nodes

Practice judicious redundancy

1/9

No alert message for error or null value

Reduce uncertainty

2/9

Questions should be able to start from everywhere (products, ingredient, etc.)

Provide multiple coding of data when appropriate

1/9

Users need go through every circle to figure out the anwser of a question

Group data in consistently meaningful ways

1/9

URL is fixed, users can not return to the previous page

Automate unwanted workload

1/9

Lack of information

No sufficient information for some relationships(like “effects_on”, need more details)

Provide multiple coding of data when appropriate

1/9

Unclear information presentation

Links overlap and relationships are hard to be read

Reduce uncertainty

1/9

Nodes’ font is difficult to be read

Reduce uncertainty

2/9

Small finder icon, it is hard for user to notice it

Present new information with meaningful aids to interpretation

1/9

Unintuitive information

Questions are not easy for laypeople to understand

Present new information with meaningful aids to interpretation

1/9

Unnecessary information

Preferred names and scientific names are unnecessary nodes

Fuse data

1/9

Redundant information for some questions’ results

Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time

2/9

Show too much information without limitation

Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time

3/9

Unnecessary information (Number in the parentheses) in right column

Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time

1/9

Unnecessary information (UMLS Semantic Type) in right column

Include in the displays only that information needed by the user at a given time

1/9